


I never felt so much alike

by piggy09



Series: Obscure Word Fics [10]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, SHAMELESS SESTRA FLUFF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 20:30:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1756357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The crackling returns and then the guitar roars to life, <i>bum</i> bum bum bum <i>bum</i> bum bum bum, and Helena starts bouncing in place, in small gestures at first and then faster, faster, until she is jumping up and down. She is grinning and then – suddenly – laughing, laughing and bouncing, a crowd of one. Out of some instinct she starts throwing her head backwards and forwards, her hair flying everywhere until she is dizzy and laughing and stumbling.</p><p>(Time for a sestra dance party? I think so.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I never felt so much alike

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt on Tumblr:  
> "Helena & Sarah | Tarantism: the urge to overcome melancholy by dancing."
> 
> Because I'm snarling angry that Helena wasn't in this week's episode and I needed to purge some Helena feelings real quick before Helena grew under my skin and consumed me. :)

They’ve left her in Felix’s apartment, Sarah and Felix, FelixandSarah, the two of them one unit Helena is left outside of. Sit, Helena. Stay, Helena. She thinks that maybe they brush skin, the two of them, their hands against each other’s hands, that casual, unconscious thing.

It was Sarah and _Helena_ in the womb, Helena thinks sourly as she paces back and forth, back and forth. Helena could be of much more use to Sarah, Helena could hunt and Helena could fetch. Helena could be Sarah’s dog, if Sarah asked her to.

Sarah doesn’t ask and so Helena is more of a caged sort of animal, pacing back and forth and back and forth. She’s already torn through the closets and found nothing of particular interest. She has admired the photographs, tracing Sarah’s face, burbling to those little photograph people. There isn’t much of a day to tell to them, though, and she isn’t in the mood to make up stories.

Felix’s refrigerator has only alcohol and Chinese food, stale in its neat white cartons. No sort of brother to Helena at all.

She trails fingers along the wall, the shelf, the record player.

The record player.

Slowly, delicately, she lowers the needle. There is a crackling that makes Helena’s eyes narrow, pulls her head to one side, draws her attention. Then the music starts and oh, it is lovely. Despite herself Helena smiles, sways back and forth, one-two-three one-two-three. Like a waltz. She hums, but the sounds are off-key and drowned out by the swell of the singer’s voice.

Helena’s head tilts back and forth as she paws through the record collection, shelved hastily at the base of the player. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for—

Until she finds it. Carefully, tenderly she pulls out the record in its grey sleeve. She breathes slow and soft, so as not to disturb it.

“London Calling,” Helena whispers, her eyes wide.

Before she can stop herself she leans in, one fast motion, and smells it. Dust gets in her nose; she wrinkles it, sneezes, and the motion sends a great cloud of dust into the air.

Through the dust she can’t tell if the record smells like Sarah at all.

She stops the record player and puts the new record on, treating it as carefully as she would treat a child. The crackling returns and then the guitar roars to life, _bum_ bum bum bum _bum_ bum bum bum, and Helena starts bouncing in place, in small gestures at first and then faster, faster, until she is jumping up and down. She is grinning and then – suddenly – laughing, laughing at how much the song is Helena, slow steady heartbeat under the feral snarls of guitar.

“London Calling,” she screams, and then goes silent while the man says words she does not know. Then “London Calling” again! Helena starts laughing to fill the parts she does not know, does not understand, laughing and bouncing, a crowd of one. Out of some instinct she starts throwing her head backwards and forwards, her hair flying everywhere until she is dizzy and laughing and stumbling.

That’s how Sarah finds her, when she comes back; Sarah alone, Sarah whose shoulders are heavy, Sarah who pauses walking in the door to find Helena, hiccupping with laughter on the floor, curled up on her back like a bug.

The singer croons on and Helena beams, pants, “London Calling!”

“Yeah,” Sarah sighs, running her hand through her hair, eyes closed tightly, “London Calling. Great.”

Helena rotates herself with her feet so she can look at Sarah, her mouth gaping as she sees her sister upside down. “Come dance,” she says seriously. “Come _dance_ , Sarah.”

She scrambles up on to her haunches and watches Sarah seriously. Thump-thump-thump go the drums.

“No,” Sarah says, “I don’t think so,” but Helena’s already running to the record player – there’s a long ripping sound as she moves the arm, and she breathes through her nose as she delicately nestles the arm at the beginning of the song.

 _Bum_ bum bum bum _bum_ bum bum bum sing the guitars, and Helena’s grinning again, looking towards Sarah. She thinks something must be shining from her face, some sort of love, because with a sigh that is more like a laugh Sarah’s shedding her jacket, walking over. A smile grows on her face to mirror Helena’s own and then – oh – she’s _dancing_.

She’s dancing and she’s beautiful – she is a knife through skin, she is the hopeful pulse of the jugular between your fingers, she is the roar of thunder and the bright flash of lightning. Helena didn’t know it was possible to speak like this, through your body, speak anger and exhaustion and hope.

She stands by the record player and watches Sarah with her mouth slightly parted, watches the pounding of Sarah’s feet on the floor and the way her hair flies when she pounds her head. She watches Sarah’s _face_ , the focus in it. Helena itches to put her hands on it and worry out the feelings from the creases of Sarah’s face, smooth out the sadness and deepen the happiness. With her fingers she could shape Sarah, maybe. Maybe.

Then Sarah’s eyes open and she snorts, steps out of dancing in one easy motion, breaks the rhythm like a neck and reaches for Helena. (She _reaches_ for Helena, Sarah reaches, Sarah reaches for Helena.)

“Come on, then, weirdo,” she says, grinning. “You wanna dance so bad, let’s dance.”

Helena locks her hands tight around Sarah’s and Sarah _pulls_ her forward and then they’re two, jumping in movements that are at the same time meaningless and full of far too much meaning, the slamming of emotions Helena has no name for against her ribs, against her skin, against Sarah’s skin. She is angry and hopeful and loving and frightened and _laughing_ , too many things at once. They’re jumping up and down the way Helena thinks they should have as children, bouncing on the bed, holding parties in their room. They’re making up for lost time, eyes locked as they throw themselves into the air, over and over and over again, knowing the inevitability of falling.

The song fades out again, the word _alike_ echoing like a heartbeat, and some instinct Helena doesn’t know makes her pull Sarah down to the floor, the two of them collapsing in a heap of tangled, identical limbs. For a brief second Helena doesn’t know if her arm is hers or Sarah’s, and that makes her so happy she feels like sobbing. Instead she breathes in the smell of Sarah and lies there and laughs, her chest shaking Sarah’s chest.

“ _Ow_ , you bitch,” Sarah gasps through her own laughter, but she doesn’t move.

The next song starts and they lie there together, their hearts beating as one.

“Baby, baby, won't you hear my plea?” yells the singer. “C'mon, sugar, just come on back to me.”

But there’s no need. Nobody needs to come back.

Everyone Helena needs is right here, tangled around Helena’s body like a memory of a long, long time ago, making Helena’s hair flutter when she breathes.

Sarah is everyone Helena needs. And Sarah, well, Sarah is right here.

**Author's Note:**

> London calling, yes, I was there, too  
> An' you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!  
> London calling at the top of the dial  
> After all this, won't you give me a smile?  
> London calling
> 
> I never felt so much alike (alike) (alike) (alike)  
> \--"London Calling," The Clash


End file.
